On the Discrepancies between Designers’ and Users’ Perceptions as Antecedents of Failures in Motivating Use

Motivational aspects of product use have recently attracted an increasing interest in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. This paper presents a study that explored the discrepancies between designers’ and users’ perceptions as antecedents of failures in motivating use. The study corroborates prior findings suggesting that designers often fall short in accounting for users’ views on the product and foreseeing their preferences. Designers seemed to ascribe more weight to efficiency and effectiveness while users seemed to have a more balanced view with a tendency to ascribe more weight to the emotional aspects of the products. Thus, the need for a holistic understanding of the product qualities that motivate use becomes apparent. Finally, a methodological approach for the study of motivational aspects of product use is proposed, based on a relatively unexplored structured interview technique, the Repertory Grid Technique.